Just A Little Joke
by Ysabet
Summary: When good jokes go very, very wrong (otherwise known as the "Don't Mess With Akako" fic.)


**_Just a Little Joke_**

**_By Ysabet_**

_NOTE:  This fic was written in response to Icka M. Chif's 'Scary Akako' pic, found here currently (later probably in her pics section):  .  You *really* ought to take a look at it and at the rest of her site if you haven't; you really should.  ^__^  Thanks, Icka!.......... Ysabet_

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"Uh………….. Kaito?"

"Yeah, I know."  It was the last day of school, and everybody else had already left.  Aoko's classmate and lifelong friend merely sat very still in his desk, hands resting easily in front of him; there was a confused, somewhat boggled look on his pale face.  "I wouldn't come any closer if I were you; I think she bites."

Considering the glowering, looming, red-eyed figure behind Kaito, the very thought of coming any closer was pretty much the last thing on his friend's mind.  Aoko blinked, beginning to sweat slightly; people's eyes didn't _REALLY_ glow like that, did they?  And there was that low, continual growling sound…..

"Er—Koizumi-kun?  Akako?"   Hakuba Saguru had walked up as well; if anything, his normally stolid face looked as nervous as Kaito's _should_ have.  "Is there… something wrong?"

GLARE.  They both flinched; Kaito closed his eyes briefly, like a headsman's victim awaiting the axe.

"How long has she been--?" ventured Aoko, eyes wide.

"Um—half an hour?"

"—eep—"

Kaito shrugged resignedly.  "I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong at first, but then the carpet under her feet started smoking.  So THEN I started to get up, but—" he nodded at the floor; it was peculiar, to say the least, the way that vines seemed to have grown right through the classroom's foundations and wrapped around his ankles.  "So I figured if I just sat here long enough she'd tell me what she's mad about or kill me, one or the other."

Hakuba looked at Aoko; Aoko looked at Hakuba.  They each tried to sneak backwards without moving their feet.  In the meantime, Akako made a slow twisting motion with her hands right beside Kaito's neck; he swallowed hard.  "Guys?  Help?"

**_"KAAAIIIITOOOO….."_******

They ALL winced; that had not sounded good.  "Yes?" squeaked Akako's prey.

_"Do you remember when I lost my purse a couple of months ago?  And I retrieved it from the Lost and Found locker at the school front office?"_

"Errr…. Uh huh?"

_"Did you happen to play any of your harmless little pranks on me right about then?  Perhaps one involving temporarily 'borrowing' my purse?"  _Aoko swallowed as well; no doubt about it, the other girl's eyes really *were* glowing red.   Beside her, Hakuba tugged at his collar, which seemed to be growing a bit tight.

"—if I said 'Maybe', would it get me killed?"

The growling noise got louder.  _"Would your… little prank… involve breath-mints or something similar?"_

Kaito brightened at this and begin to look slightly more hopeful.  "Right—yeah!  You had this little plastic breath-mint thingie in your purse, so I, um, well….."  Hope started to wilt.  "…. Um, you were almost *out* of 'em, so I filled the whole thing up with something I had been saving to—uh, use… on… somebody…"  And NOW Hope succumbed completely to leaf-blight and fell over into a sad, withered heap.  "Bad idea, huh?  It was just a little joke….."

_"And just what DID you replace my breath-mints with, hmmmmmmmm?"_

Ooooh.  Both of Kaito's classmates found their feet shuffling backwards of their own accord, only to freeze in their tracks as Akako's Glare Of Death was briefly turned their way.

Kaito wiped away a sheen of sweat.  "Err.  Garlic-pills.  See, they'd TASTE okay, but after a while you'd begin to smell like—"  His voice trailed off, and he closed his eyes again.  "I'm utterly doomed, aren't I?"

The horrific figure behind him gently placed hands graced with long, sharp, red-enameled nails on either of his shoulders; across from him, Aoko and Hakuba mentally waved farewell to Kaito and consigned their friend's soul to the mercy of God.  **_"Quite.  Possibly."_**

Garlic-pills…  It *had* been noticed by her classmates that Akako-kun had developed a bit of a pong, but they had deemed it an unnecessary risk to mention her new 'perfume'.  And it had gone away after a while, anyway.  "A-Akako-kun?  It, it *WAS* just a practical joke—"  Aoko hoped that there'd be at least enough pieces of her friend left to allow a funeral.  "And…. I, uh, I'm sorry, but I—he told me what he had done about a week ago, and I *KNOW* I should've told you, but when you stopped smelling like—"  The Inspector's daughter cut her sentence off abruptly as the glowing red glare focused on _her._  

"EEEP!"

A moment later, Aoko peered around from behind the quaking Hakuba and continued brightly.  "I mean, he *knows* he went a little overboard and he's really, _really sorry,_ AREN'T you, Kaito?"

_**squeak**_ went Kaito; apparently his vocal chords had stopped working.

It took a couple of tries for Hakuba's own voice to work, but eventually he achieved sound.  "Er—Akako-kun?  Far be it from me to stop you from dealing out anything that Kuroba-kun deserves, but—"  He couldn't quite bring himself to say _'don't you think that eating him alive is going a bit too far?'_

She smiled at him.  At least, it *might* have been a smile.  There were teeth.

_"Actually, this concerns YOU as well, my dear Saguru."_

"Urk.  It does?"

_"OH yes, it certainly does.  Kaito-kun?  ….. those weren't breath-mints.  They were birth-control pills."_

**OH SHIT** went everybody's eyes.

_"One does NOT chew birth-control pills, and therefore I did not notice any difference until recently, what with the cold I've had during the past few weeks.  When I noticed, of course, I stopped taking them and had my prescription refilled."_

Kaito found his voice then; apparently it had been hiding somewhere in a very distant, frightened land.  "…I _thought_ they were sort of small for breath-mints…  I had to shave the garlic-pills down so you wouldn't notice the difference…"

_"Quite.  Saguru-chan?  Do you remember the evening when I taught you that interesting little game involving the Nun and the Trapeze Artist?  The role-playing one, with the, ah, special outfits and equipment?"_  Akako's fingers began to tighten as Kaito's eyebrows went up in speculation; he opened his mouth, then closed it quickly before anything that would produce his immediate death snuck out.

Hakuba, on the other hand, turned white.  Aoko looked puzzled, and then her eyes bulged.

_"…yes, I see that you *do.*   It was an enlightening evening all around; you were surprisingly enthusiastic once you had gotten the hang of things, so to speak...  Unfortunately, I had been taking Kaito's little replacements for several weeks before that rather than my USUAL prescription, and yesterday morning I felt a bit ill, so I saw my family's doctor.  You'll be interested to hear that I'm—  **KAAAIIIITO****!!!  RRRRAAAGH!!!"**_****

----but Kaito's remaining shreds of self-preservation had propelled him out of his seat as if launched from a catapult, vines or no vines.  Dragging Aoko by her wrist, he whipped around the door and was out of sight (and out of Akako's clawing, rending grasp) before the last of her 'rrrraaagh' had stopped echoing in the room.  Behind them, Hakuba Saguru fell over in a very British, very thorough faint.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

A week later, somewhere far away from Tokyo:

"Aoko?  Do you think we can stop running yet?"

"Do YOU?"

"…..no…..  How 'bout Hokkaido?  Or Tibet?  I hear it's nice in Tibet this time of year—"

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End file.
